You Ought to Be in Pictures
You Ought to Be in Pictures is a 1940 Looney Tunes short directed by I. Freleng. Title The title comes from the popular 1934 song "You Oughta Be in Pictures" by Dana Suesse and Edward Heyman. Plot Daffy wants to be the top star in the studio. To this end, he persuades Porky to resign from the Schlesinger studios to pursue a career in feature films as Bette Davis' leading man. Porky goes to Leon Schlesinger and asks to have his contract torn up. Schlesinger reluctantly agrees, and wishes Porky the best of luck. "He'll be back!" chuckles Schlesinger after Porky is out of earshot. Porky spends the rest of the film trying to get into the lots and sets of an unnamed studio, with little success. After several failures (from convincing the security guard to let him in and dressing up as Oliver Hardy to gain access, until the guard gave chase) and inadvertently interrupting the shooting of a ballet film, he decides to see if Schlesinger will take him back. He returns to Schlesinger's office after frantically dodging his cartooned car in and out of "actual" Los Angeles traffic, only to see Daffy doing a wild audition to become the new star of Warner Bros. cartoons, openly disparaging Porky. Porky then takes Daffy with him to another room, where he beats Daffy up. After this, he hurriedly runs into Schlesinger's office to beg for his job back. Schlesinger, laughing heartily and saying "I knew you'd be back!", reveals that he didn't really rip up Porky's contract, and happily tells him to get back to work. Porky gladly thanks him and runs back into the animation paper that he was in when the short started. Daffy, still not quite having learned his lesson after being beaten by Porky, again attempts to persuade Porky to resign and work with Greta Garbo, only to get splattered with a tomato. Availability * (1985) VHS - Looney Tunes Golden Jubilee: Porky Pig's Screwball Comedies (original black and white, time compressed) * (1993) LaserDisc - Ham on Wry: The Porky Pig Laser Collection * (1997) VHS - Carrotblanca (1995 Computer Colorized Version with 1997 Dubbed Version disclaimer) * (1999) VHS - Looney Tunes: The Collectors Edition, Vol. 9: A Looney Life * (2004) DVD - Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2, Disc Four * (2012) Blu-ray, DVD - Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2, Disc 1 * (2017) DVD - Porky Pig 101, Disc 4 Notes * In a real-life parallel of the storyline, the short was Friz Freleng's first since returning to Schlesinger after a stint as a director at MGM's cartoon division. In fact, the cartoon homages Freleng's experience in moving to MGM. * Many staff members have cameos in this short: ** Leon Schlesinger — appears as himself ** Chuck Jones — one of the crowd rushing out during the lunch break ** Michael Maltese — the studio security guard (voiced by Mel Blanc) ** Bob Clampett — another one of the Termite Terrace employees rushing frantically off to lunch ** Gerry Chiniquy — studio director calling for quiet ** Henry Binder & Paul Marin stagehands also calling for quiet. Binder is also the stagehand throwing Porky off the set * To keep the short on-budget, relatively few special effects were used to marry the animation and live action. Where possible, the crew simply took still pictures of the office background and had them enlarged and placed directly on the animation stand. * Because the animation unit did not have access to location sound recording equipment, all of the live-action footage was shot silent. The voices had to be dubbed in later (which is why most of them were dubbed by Mel Blanc, except Leon Schlesinger who dubbed his own voice). * Clocking at a total run-time of 9 minutes 45 seconds, this is one of the longest-running Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts ever produced. When this cartoon has been released on the short-lived Golden Jubilee video collection "Porky Pig's Screwball Comedies", due to the 1 hour VHS space restrictions at the time, this cartoon has been time-compressed (sped-up) to be twice as fast as normal, and two other Porky Pig shorts in this tape which clock at the usual run-time of 6-7 minutes, "The Wearing of the Grin" and "Dough for the Do-Do", were also time-compressed the same way to fit in the VHS tape's space restrictions for this reason. * Because it was made in black-and-white, the short appeared only occasionally on television. In 1995, the film was computer-colorized and became a regular part of the Cartoon Network rotation (though it was shown in black and white on the short-lived Golden Jubilee video collection in the mid-1980s and was shown in black and white on Cartoon Network's installment show "Late Night Black and White" and on Nickelodeon's "Nick At Nite" version of Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon). ** When this cartoon was shown in black and white on Cartoon Network's installment show "Late Night Black and White", the time-compressed Golden Jubilee VHS print was used https://archive.org/details/BugsAndDaffyPT.2. * Some non-US televised and video prints (i.e.: released on Carrotblanca VHShttps://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4dgygm) of the cartoon have the "DUBBED VERSION © 1997 WARNER BROS." disclaimer on the computer-colorized print of the cartoon at the beginning, due to a foreign-language dub track produced. * This is the first Daffy Duck cartoon to be directed by Friz Freleng. * In 1994, it was voted #34 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field.Beck, Jerry (ed.) (1994). The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals. Atlanta: Turner Publishing. * On the Sunset Productions/Guild Films print the Leon Schlesinger Productions building sign is cut due to involvement with Warner Bros. This cut was made because Warner Bros. did not want to be associated with television back in 1955, when this cartoon was sold for television distribution. This scene has been restored in the computer-colorized version and on home video releases. Goofs * A shadow of a camera can be seen on the wall, while Porky Pig is beating up Daffy Duck for revenge, off-screen, just after returning to the Warner Bros' animation studio and asks Leon Schlesinger for his contract. * Only in the computer-colorized version: An animator originally draws Porky Pig in black-and-white. In the next scene after the Termite Terrace employees rush out of the studio for lunch, Porky appears in color, resulting to a plot-hole on who (among the Termite Terrace crew) colored him at the last minute or how Porky got colorized. Gallery Outtabe.jpg You-ought-to-be-02.png you-ought-to-be-03.png You Ought to be in Pictures (14).jpg You Ought to be in Pictures (15).jpg 675_a.jpg|Porky Pig now leaving the Warner Bros. Studios pig12.8959.jpg You_Ought_to_Be_in_Pictures_(screenshot).jpg Screen Shot 2013-07-20 at 01.02.29.png|Live-action crew for YOU OUGHT TO BE IN PICTURES (1940). 1st row, kneeling: Michael Maltese (still in security guard uniform), Friz Freleng, Paul Collier, Paul Marron, Smokey Garner. 2nd row, standing: Jack Miller, Harold Soldinger, Johnny Burton, Henry Binder. References *Beck, Jerry and Friedwald, Will (1989): Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Company. External links * * Watch "You Ought To Be In Pictures" at supercartoons.net Category:Looney Tunes Shorts Category:Cartoons directed by Friz Freleng Category:Porky Pig Cartoons Category:Daffy Duck Cartoons Category:1940 Category:Shorts Category:Post-1935 Black & White Looney Tunes Category:Cartoons written by Jack Miller Category:Cartoons animated by Herman Cohen Category:Cartoons with music by Carl W. Stalling Category:Cartoons with orchestrations by Milt Franklyn Category:Cartoons with film editing by Treg Brown Category:Cartoons with sound effects edited by Treg Brown Category:Cartoons produced by Leon Schlesinger Category:Cartoons with characters voiced by Mel Blanc Category:Caricatures of real people Category:Cartoons in the Sunset Productions package Category:Cartoons with camera by John W. Burton